


my first and last

by boyeater



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Photographer, Childhood Friends, Coming of Age, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, they are a social construct if i must say so myself, what are tenses i genuinely do not know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 08:56:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20240191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boyeater/pseuds/boyeater
Summary: Donghyuck is his uncontrollable, stubborn, wonderful first love.A story of first loves through birthdays and photographs.





	my first and last

**Author's Note:**

  * For [englishsummerrain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/englishsummerrain/gifts).

> hello my love <3 you asked for photographer jaemin and i made an attempt. i tried. i'm not sure if this is what you had in mind but Alas, i have a stupid dog brain. you asked for cute or angsty or sweet or sentimental and i tried to do all at once Haha gotcha! i know this is nana's birthday bash but can i please wax some poetic about donghyuck..all things aside, i really do hope you like this!!!!! to friendship!!!!! i hope we'll grow to be good friends through this and 00ff <3 
> 
> if you know who i am based on my note... shut up

The first time Jaemin takes a picture of Donghyuck, it’s with a five dollar, one-use disposable camera he found in the back aisle of the convenience store on the corner, and Donghyuck is grinning against the pastel pink walls of an ice cream shop, a chocolate covered waffle cone melting in his hands and birthday cake ice cream dripping down his fingers. He’s got ice cream on his nose and some on the corner of his mouth, and he’s glistening with sweat from the summer heat, t-shirt sticking to his skin and dark curly hair a bird’s nest.

Jaemin snorts at the image, and he takes another one for blackmail. “You look so gross right now, Donghyuck.”

“I know. The tables here are so shiny. It’s like a mirror.” Donghyuck smiles as he looks down at himself, making silly faces at his own image, all duck lips and crinkled eyes. “You look gross too, you know. Like a grease ball. So we’re in this together.” 

Donghyuck is twelve years and two months old and Jaemin is twelve today, just barely old enough to be allowed to roam the city without an adult at all times—though his mother still makes sure he has his emergency phone on him and that he texts her at least once every hour—and it’s his birthday.

He and Donghyuck walked to the far end of the city that day, almost a half hour walk from Donghyuck’s house, to that one ice cream shop that Donghyuck has had his eye on since the day it opened. 

  
  
  
  


Donghyuck loves ice cream more than anything in the world, Jaemin thinks, what with how he always immediately runs to the ice cream aisle when Donghyuck’s mom takes him and Jaemin along with her to the market. Donghyuck would always press his face up against the glass, hands on both sides of his head as he breathed onto the glass door, drawing a smiley face into the fog as he read the names of the ice cream flavors out loud to himself. 

“Which one should I have this time, Jaemin?” Donghyuck would always ask, although he would always pick a different flavor from the one Jaemin chose. _ Always. _

“Why do you ask me if you’re going to choose a different one?” Jaemin asked him one time, rolling his eyes as Donghyuck hugged a tub of raspberry cheesecake ice cream in his arms despite Jaemin pointing to orange sherbet just seconds ago. 

“Just cause.” Donghyuck said, making a self-satisfied face and blinking innocently at Jaemin. “I like making you think. It’s good for you.” 

Jaemin slapped Donghyuck’s arm, making to put him in a choke hold, but Donghyuck was taller and stronger than him then, and Jaemin didn’t have the energy to start a wrestling match in the middle of the market. “I do enough thinking.” 

“No,” Donghyuck wrinkled his nose, trying not to laugh at the look on Jaemin’s face. Donghyuck had thrown an arm across Jaemin’s shoulder and dragged him into the candy aisle, “I don’t think you do.”

  
  
  
  


Jaemin doesn’t really like ice cream, to be completely honest, he can tolerate some flavors, like chocolate and mint chocolate chip, sometimes, if Jeno orders it and Jaemin is in the mood for it, but most aren’t good enough for him to forget that it’s almost completely made of milk. So really, Jaemin doesn’t know why he allowed Donghyuck to take him here, on _ his _birthday too, of all days. If it was Donghyuck’s birthday, sure, he’ll do anything the birthday boy says, but it’s not the sixth of June anymore. Today, the calendar reads August 13, 2012. 

If anything, Donghyuck should be the one following Jaemin, but all things considered, Donghyuck had a perfect track record of always getting his way and Jaemin always had a habit of going along with anything Donghyuck asked of him. 

Maybe it was the roundness of Donghyuck’s cheeks when he pouted, or the gloss of his eyes when he made himself look a little more pitiful. Donghyuck was good at making himself cry. He would make a good actor, maybe. And he was always good at making Jaemin cave, always the one to make Jaemin jump off the diving board at the swimming pool or ride down the big hills on his bike without touching the handles. All it took was one look from Donghyuck and a classic “Come on, Jaemin, it will be fun!” and Jaemin would probably run into a house on fire. It usually _ was _ fun, Jaemin will give him that much, but maybe it was just Donghyuck that made it fun.

Not that Jaemin would tell him that. Not in a million years. 

Donghyuck was enough to put up with as is, but Donghyuck with a stroked ego? That would be the end of the world as we know it. 

So Jaemin simply rolls his eyes and takes more pictures of Donghyuck, the short _ click, click, click _ of the camera in tune with the pounding of his heart. 

Jaemin bites at the waffle cone of his ice cream and pretends not to know what that could mean. 

He’s only twelve today. He has all the time in the world to make sense of it all. And maybe Donghyuck will help him if it all comes down to that. (Jaemin hopes it won’t. For the sake of them both.) 

  
  
  
  


It’s not until Jaemin is in his first year of high school that he starts to take photography seriously. 

Donghyuck egged him on to take pictures for the yearbook because “Oh? Your pictures aren’t that bad, Jaemin.” and “You should do yearbook. It’ll be fun!” 

And Jaemin hates to say it, but Donghyuck is right. Yearbook _is_ fun, and Jaemin isn’t that bad at taking pictures. Not bad at all. He’s actually really good. He hears it enough to believe it. He _knows_ it. And if Donghyuck’s eyes light up too every time someone compliments Jaemin’s pictures, Jaemin pretends it’s simply the lighting that makes them look a little brighter than usual. 

Jaemin becomes the head of the photography club not long after that, and half of the pictures on the school site are his. 

(If Donghyuck becomes the star of the school after that, smiling face all over the school site, it’s no one’s business.)

It’s a different feeling seeing his name under his pictures. Something like pride, maybe? A little different from happiness or comfort, but it fills him with a similar warmth. It’s hot to the touch, but not uncomfortably so. It’s a comforting warmth, like a blanket just out of the dryer or a long, hot shower. 

Like having Donghyuck around.

  
  
  
  


For Jaemin’s sixteenth birthday, his parents give him his first “professional” camera, a DSLR that weighs as much as it costs and feels like a promise in his hands. 

Jaemin takes a picture of every single person in that room, for memory’s sake, his grandmother would say. She’s starting to lose hers, so Jaemin makes sure to capture it all in pictures for her, but that’s another story for another day. 

He takes one of Donghyuck first. It’s just a quick shot to test the waters before he makes his way around the room. And Donghyuck is the last person his camera lands on that night. It’s always like that, really. 

It always starts and ends with Donghyuck. 

Donghyuck naturally falls into a pose immediately once he notices Jaemin pointing the camera at him, smiling prettily into the camera, and a small smile of his own blossoms on Jaemin’s lips. 

Jaemin’s house is quiet now, long after his friends and family have gone home, only the voices of his mother and father coming from down the hall filling the silence. Jaemin would have asked if Jeno and Mark wanted to stay the night, but they have all grown a little too big to fit on the floor of Jaemin’s room. But Jaemin didn’t have to ask Donghyuck. They had both known he would stay. 

And so Donghyuck takes over Jaemin’s bed as if it was his, like he always has, Jaemin’s biggest pillow in his arms and blanket slipping off of his shoulders. Jaemin lays on his stomach on the opposite end of the bed, arm hanging off the edge, and Jaemin notes that Donghyuck glows a little brighter at night, face illuminated by the nightlight Jaemin still stubbornly uses despite all of Donghyuck’s teasing. 

A messily wrapped box with a big yellow bow on it sits in the space between them.

It’s not until the old clock in the corner of Jaemin’s room reads 11:59 PM that Donghyuck allows him to touch it. 

“You didn’t have to, you know.” Jaemin says as he sits up. 

“I did, actually.” Donghyuck makes a face, nose wrinkling though a pretty smile paints itself on his lips. “Remember the last time I forgot to give you something for your birthday?” 

(Jaemin does remember. He pretended to be mad at Donghyuck until the boy promised to make it up to him if only so he would shut up and stop telling the class Donghyuck killed his fish. Donghyuck did, actually, back in the first grade, but that was between them.)

“I do.” Jaemin laughs at the thought of it. “And you made the right choice.”

The look on Donghyuck’s face could kill. 

“Shut up and just look inside the box, Jaemin.” is what Donghyuck says as Jaemin finally rips past the pink tissue paper and feels something familiar, eyes pressed shut because he likes surprises. Jaemin runs his thumb across the smooth edge, feeling cold metal and something different. Leather, is it? Jaemin holds it in his hand, feeling the weight of it, and Jaemin’s world seems to spin a little faster as soon as he realizes what it is. 

“No way.” Jaemin’s mouth goes dry, eyes wide as he takes it all in, and his heart seems to read the situation as something classified as code red. It pounds, and it pounds, and it races with the vigor of a marathon runner. “No fucking way.” 

The box falls away, and Jaemin looks down at the vintage polaroid camera in his hands. Polaroid SX-70. Jaemin recognizes it immediately from the small scratch on the side. It’s the same one Jaemin was looking at the last time he and Donghyuck walked into the old camera store across town. (And every time prior to that, too.) 

“You have got to be shitting me, Lee Donghyuck.” He holds the camera with both hands now, holding it to the light and looking at it from different angles, head in the clouds and mind racing a mile a minute in excitement, but it grounds him. It feels a little different from the one his parents got him. It’s a little more personal, just barely, but enough to make a difference. Maybe because Donghyuck had known how much Jaemin loved it from just the look in Jaemin’s eyes alone. Maybe because it was from Donghyuck. “You got me this?”

“Cost me a whole two month’s worth of ice cream.” Donghyuck pouts, looking forlorn as he pats his stomach. Jaemin turns the camera round and round in his hands as he listens to Donghyuck’s voice, still growing used to the reality of it being _ his _. “The things I do for you, Na Jaemin.” 

Jaemin’s eyes dart from the camera to Donghyuck, to the camera, and back to Donghyuck, and his heart pounds so hard it almost hurts. Donghyuck only looks back at him with a little smile, just a small one, the one that Jaemin only catches when Donghyuck thinks he isn’t looking, and _ something _, something both completely familiar and unknown floods him. It’s different from happiness, or pride, or anything of that string of feeling. It’s the most similar to the feeling of that moment years ago in the ice cream shop, Jaemin thinks.

The feeling that Jaemin had worked so hard to shy away from all this time. 

It’s back in all of its blinding light. It is uncontrollable, stubborn, and wonderful. It’s time-stopping, and world-slowing, and it stretches across all of the different lifetimes where Jaemin and Donghyuck grow up together.

Does this always happen when you know someone like the back of your hand? Do you always feel something particularly different for them than for someone you know less intimately? 

No? _ Maybe it’s just Jaemin. _

“Lee Donghyuck choosing _ me _over ice cream?” Jaemin does a little victory lap around the room, landing on his bed again and rolling onto his back to smile up at Donghyuck. “You love me.”

“A little.” Donghyuck mumbles. He says it with a softness that makes Jaemin face grow warm. “Just a little.”

Donghyuck smiles, and Jaemin doesn’t miss the light that burns in his eyes. 

It is brilliant. 

Jaemin’s hands itch to turn the camera on and take a picture before the look on Donghyuck’s face fades out into something different, before it fades from Jaemin’s memory as time moves and moments like this lose shape, growing soft around the edges with age. But Jaemin knows that it won’t happen. Not to this one. He will remember this moment for a long time. 

_ Maybe it’s just Jaemin and Donghyuck. _

  
  
  
  


Jaemin’s camera—both of them, really, but Jaemin only uses the polaroid to take pictures of Donghyuck. It’s something that is solely for him.—becomes a part of him after that, and it takes up a space in his life that Jaemin always thought was a little bare. Just a little. But it’s filled now, finally. 

And it feels nice to have something he’s really good at. Something that is his. Something that he likes enough to actually consider making a life out of. It makes him feel he has a place in the world. A place that is made for him. 

Donghyuck starts telling him about part time job opportunities and photography scholarships at big universities once they’re in their third year of high school.

  
  
  
  


It all started to fall apart when Jaemin got a letter from a school in New York.

Donghyuck got into Seoul National University the day before.

It’s a long distance from Seoul to New York City.

  
  
  
  


On the night of Jaemin’s nineteenth birthday, he takes one last picture of Donghyuck. 

Jaemin hums a song as the polaroid starts to take shape, the image of Donghyuck slowly coloring itself. Jaemin traces the film with his finger, wondering how time had slipped through his hands so quickly. Donghyuck had grown a lot, hadn’t he? In the picture, Donghyuck is posed cross legged at the end of Jaemin’s bed, holding a small box in his hands, and he has a bright smile on his face. 

“How do I look?”

_ Beautiful _, Jaemin thinks. 

Donghyuck places the box on Jaemin’s table, right on top of Jaemin’s passport. (Maybe so he doesn’t forget to take it with him. Maybe so Jaemin forgets his passport and has to come back home. Maybe so he would miss his flight and stay for just a little longer.) Donghyuck makes to look at the picture, but Jaemin holds it to his chest before he can. Donghyuck always wanted to have the polaroids of himself, but Jaemin is going to hold onto this one. Jaemin makes a note to place it in his passport too. 

“Gross.” Jaemin says, “Like a grease ball.”

Jaemin thinks Donghyuck is going to laugh, he always did when Jaemin said that, but instead he makes this sound that Jaemin has only heard a couple of times in his life, this small, broken whimper that makes Jaemin ache to protect him. The first time it was when Donghyuck’s mother got into a car accident. Once it was when Mark was really, _ really _mad at him. Another time it was when Donghyuck got hurt during soccer practice and the doctor said he probably wouldn’t be able to play for a long time. And this time, it’s because of Jaemin. 

“Donghyuck?” Jaemin moves to climb out of bed, this bitter feeling of guilt pooling at the bottom of his stomach, but Donghyuck stops him, shaking his head.

“It’s okay. I’m going to be okay.” Donghyuck says through shaky breaths, cheeks glistening in the low light, stained with sadness as he covers his mouth with his hand. Stray tears fall from Donghyuck’s eyes and all Jaemin aches to do is kiss them away. “I’m just going to miss you a lot. That’s all.”

Jaemin lays back down and he lifts the blanket for Donghyuck, welcoming him back into his arms. “Baby, come here.” 

It’s not until Donghyuck has stopped crying, calm now, cuddling close and facing Jaemin with this far off look in his eyes, that he mumbles, “Happy birthday, Jaemin.” 

Donghyuck hums, placing a gentle hand on Jaemin’s face, thumb swiping at tears that Jaemin didn’t realize had fallen. “I think it’s the first time I have actually said that to you.” 

And Jaemin doesn’t know what more to say other than “Thank you, Donghyuck. For everything.”

“You’re making it sound like this is the last time I’ll see you.” Donghyuck laughs, wiping his face with the sleeve of his hoodie—of Jaemin’s hoodie. He folds his hands under his cheek and Jaemin’s blanket slips down his shoulder. “You’ll come back to visit.” 

Jaemin doesn’t have the heart to tell him that airplane tickets from New York to Seoul and back are more than he can afford, the scholarship only covers tuition and a third of room and board at most, and he probably won’t come back more than once a year, if that. He only nods and holds Donghyuck closer to him, mumbling about the childhood they shared until they both fall asleep under the dim glow of a nightlight as old as they are. 

He’s off to the airport in the morning, his parents in the front and his grandmother in the back with him. Jeno and Mark, and the friends he made in high school—Renjun, Yangyang, Chenle and Jisung—in the car behind them. 

Donghyuck doesn’t come to say goodbye, but Jaemin doesn’t blame him. Donghyuck only hugged him a little tighter than usual at Jaemin’s door, mumbling a “You know, right?” into the crook of his neck and pressing a soft kiss on his cheek. 

And Donghyuck’s eyes softened just a fraction—just enough for Jaemin to understand.

_ I love you. _

He understands. He’s always understood Donghyuck. More than he understood himself, sometimes. Jaemin knows what Donghyuck wants to say. Jaemin has always known what he wanted to say. And he knows why he hasn’t said it. 

(Donghyuck had a lot of stupid courage, but something like this takes more than that. Donghyuck was always afraid of things like this. Always quick to challenge but first to back down if things got out of his control.

Jaemin was a little more brave than Donghyuck, maybe. But not brave enough. If he was, maybe things would have turned out differently. If he was brave enough to continue walking down the line, if he didn’t stop at the middle and wait for Donghyuck to come to him, maybe they would have been more than childhood best friends. 

Maybe Donghyuck would have been more than Jaemin’s first love. 

So if anyone is to blame, maybe it’s Jaemin. But no one is to blame. 

Sometimes first loves are like this, right?)

Jaemin smiled, the little grin that he saves only for Donghyuck. “Yeah, I know.” 

And something filled Jaemin then. Not so much heartbreak, though it did make his heart ache, as it was understanding. 

Donghyuck turned to wave at the end of Jaemin’s sidewalk, a small smile on his lips. And he was gone after that, walking to his house around the corner without looking back.

A selfish part of Jaemin hoped that Donghyuck would come back and ask him to stay. 

But the part of Jaemin that loves photography more than anything, the part that is addicted to the feeling it fills him with tells him it’s okay to chase after his dreams at the cost of _ this _ —this _ thing _ that isn’t actually a thing, not completely, not out loud. _ That _ part of him thanks Donghyuck for not coming to send him off.

If he was honest with himself, Jaemin doesn’t think he would have had the heart to go if Donghyuck did. 

(Donghyuck knows that too, maybe.)

Donghyuck was always like that. He always cared about Jaemin although he would pretend he didn’t. He always put Jaemin above him. Jaemin sometimes hated it; he hated that Donghyuck was always careful not to ask for too much, not to cross lines that Jaemin didn’t cross first, but today, as he waves goodbye to his family and friends, Jaemin thinks of it as a small mercy.

  
  
  
  


Jaemin doesn’t find out what Donghyuck got him for his birthday until he’s high above the earth and far, far away from Seoul—Donghyuck asked him to wait until he was on the plane, and what was Jaemin good at if not doing what Donghyuck asked of him?

And if he breaks down into sobs at the sight of what lies inside the box, the passengers around him are kind enough to pretend they don’t hear him. 

It’s a nightlight. And it’s almost the same as the one in his room back home but rather than the moon, it’s the sun. 

  
  
  
  


“You’re not a little kid anymore, Jaemin.” Donghyuck said on the night of Jaemin’s thirteenth birthday as he watched Jaemin turn the nightlight on. “Do you really still need that?” 

“It helps me sleep.” Jaemin rolls his eyes. Hadn’t they talked about this before? Donghyuck just liked to make fun of him for it, but Jaemin wasn’t going to stop using it no matter how old he was. “I used to be scared of the dark, you know. It makes me feel safe and all that.”

“I know, idiot.” Donghyuck laughs, and the sound makes Jaemin smile too. Donghyuck’s laughter was as contagious as all of his other emotions, always so much bigger than he was. 

Donghyuck rolls onto his stomach, this lopsided smile on his face, and Jaemin catches his eyes just as they grow soft with warm, golden light. “Why do you think I got one for my room?”

  
  
  
  


Donghyuck is his uncontrollable, stubborn, wonderful first love. He is time-stopping, and world-slowing, and if he is fated to be Jaemin’s last love too, the red string of fate will stretch across all of the different lifetimes where Jaemin and Donghyuck grow up together and find each other again.

  
  
  
  


“Na Jaemin?” 

Jaemin’s blood runs cold at the sound of an achingly familiar voice. It’s still so honey-like though years have passed and age should have made Jaemin a little less lovesick. 

Donghyuck? 

It couldn’t be. Would fate choose to let them find each other again in not New York City or Seoul, but in Tokyo? Under cherry blossoms, of all things too. It’s a little cliche, Jaemin thinks, but he and Donghyuck always did like cliches. 

Jaemin turns around, and his heart still pounds with the vigor it did all that time ago at the sight of a small, soft smile and bright eyes. 

It’s almost like his heart has missed Donghyuck too. 

“Jaemin.” Donghyuck breathes out, something swimming in his eyes, something that Jaemin can’t place a name to. It makes Jaemin feel a little sick to his stomach, just a little, to not be able to read Donghyuck anymore. Donghyuck looks at Jaemin for a long while, and Jaemin takes the moment to really look at Donghyuck. He’s grown, shoulders more filled out and a little taller than he was at Mark’s wedding two years ago. Time does change a lot, doesn’t it? “I almost didn’t think it was you. You know, with the pink hair and all.” 

Jaemin touches his hair, smiling at the thought of it. “It wasn’t supposed to turn out so pink, but I like it.” He points at Donghyuck’s own silver hair, bangs just a little curled. “The color is nice on you. You look pretty.” 

Donghyuck only smiles. And he’s silent for a minute, only looking at the world around him, and Jaemin notes that this is different too. Donghyuck used to just say what was on his mind, but now he weighs his words. It’s not a bad thing. It’s not bad to change. It’s just the way it is, and Jaemin thinks that he likes Donghyuck like this too. Donghyuck has grown in ways that Jaemin can’t make out with just one look at him, and the thought has Jaemin’s heart swelling with pride. 

It’s only after a mother and her small child walk past them on the bridge that Donghyuck says something. “It’s been a long time, Jaemin.”

“Yeah.” Jaemin breathes out with a sigh. He thinks about it for a moment, an old feeling of guilt nagging at him. “It has, hasn’t it? Since the last time we talked?”

“Almost a year?” 

“Happy birthday texts don’t count, Donghyuck.” Jaemin chides, a hint of a smile starting to blossom on his lips at the blush growing on the tops of Donghyuck’s cheeks. Donghyuck was always so easy to unnerve, no matter what Mark or Jeno would say—something about Donghyuck only blushing like a schoolgirl around him—Jaemin knows this is the truth. “That’s just a habit.”

Jaemin thinks back to the happy birthday text he sent Donghyuck last month, and he doesn’t think he said more than a simple “Happy 30th birthday, Donghyuck.” 

Still, no matter how many times Jaemin says it to himself in the solitude of his own room, this half-true excuse of “Happy birthday texts don’t count.” to allow himself some peace of mind—and he’s only brave enough to think about Donghyuck when his clock reads 2:00 AM and no one is around to hear how loud and pathetic his thoughts are—it’s odd to hear himself say it out loud. And to say it to Donghyuck himself, of all people, it’s almost like he’s fallen into a parallel universe where everything is a little more fucked up than it already is. 

This is fucked up. 

It’s real fucked up because Jaemin knows in his heart that to him, it wasn’t just a habit. It was saying all the things he couldn’t say in the years they shared in a simple happy birthday text. It was saying he missed Donghyuck. It was saying “I’m sorry you and I ended up like this.” 

He hasn’t talked to Donghyuck in years. Donghyuck, who he shared his youth with. Donghyuck, who he thought he would share his life with. 

Sometimes that’s just a part of growing up. 

  
  
  
  


The day before Jaemin left, he and Donghyuck made a promise to call each other at least once a day, maybe in the morning, for Jaemin at least—so it would be just after sunset for Donghyuck—since Donghyuck was always more talkative once the stars started to line the sky. Something about the silence of the night, the peace and quiet, made Donghyuck just a little more playful than he was during the day. He would always be the last one awake at sleepovers, always talking to himself and laughing once he realized all of his friends had fallen asleep. 

Jaemin had woken up to Donghyuck’s laughter once, the sound a staccato in the low humming of the air conditioning and Mark’s snoring. It was his birthday again, if he remembers right. He turned eight that year, and he invited all of his friends to his house for the night. They talked into the early hours of the morning about anything under the sky, Jeno’s crush on the girl on the soccer team, the treehouse Donghyuck’s dad was building for him and his twin sister, until quiet laughter turned to snoring. 

At some point after four in the morning, Jaemin dozed off, and he awoke to the sun rising in the sky, shining through Jaemin’s blinds in stripes of sunlight, and the soft sound of Donghyuck’s laughter. 

The clock read 8:00 AM. Too early for a Saturday morning. 

“Shut up, Donghyuck.” Jaemin whined, tossing a pillow in the direction of Donghyuck’s growing laughter. He must have realized he accidentally woke Jaemin up. “I’m trying to sleep.” 

Donghyuck only laughed a little louder, on purpose, Jaemin knows, because Donghyuck is a brat. “So go to sleep, Jaemin.” 

“I will.” Jaemin hissed, hiding his face under his pillow and mumbling something about sleeping until lunch time.

Donghyuck’s laughter grows closer, and Jaemin shouldn’t have been surprised at the feeling of a body pressed against his. This was Donghyuck, after all. Touchy, affectionate, gross Donghyuck. 

“Me too.” Donghyuck hummed, pressing his face into Jaemin’s shoulder blade and winding an arm around Jaemin’s middle. “Goodnight.” 

“It’s eight in the morning, Donghyuck.” Jaemin breathes out, half air and half his actual voice. 

Donghyuck hold on him only tightens. “I said goodnight, Nana.”

Jaemin smiles at the nickname. Donghyuck only used it if he was sleepy. He moves back into Donghyuck’s warmth. “Goodnight, Duckie.”

  
  


Donghyuck scratches the back of his head, face burning with embarrassment and what looks like the start of an apology. What does he have to apologize for? Calls once a day and texts throughout the day turned into a text a day and a call once a week, and that turned into a call once a month, and it only continued to fade. Things like that happen. Time and distance make those things happen. “Okay, so it’s been a lot longer than that.”

Jaemin hums as he takes a picture of a cherry blossom falling. He takes a quick look at the image and looks up at Donghyuck who is already looking back at him with a small smile and golden warmth in his eyes. Jaemin knows that smile. It’s fond and soft around the edges, and it makes Donghyuck look like he did when they were just twelve-year-old kids having ice cream together.

“What?” Jaemin asks, a smile of his own blossoming on his lips like spring. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Donghyuck’s eyes soften. 

“I just missed you a lot. That’s all.” 

Jaemin doesn’t have to ask Donghyuck to come to him this time. 

Donghyuck presses his face into the crook of Jaemin’s shoulder, and Jaemin can feel Donghyuck’s smile against his skin. 

“Happy birthday, Jaemin.” 

  
  
  
  


“You know, right?” Donghyuck smiles from behind the camera, Jaemin posing against the freshly painted walls of Donghyuck’s apartment. Photographs from his childhood, taken by Jaemin himself, hang on the opposite wall, and Jaemin’s heart swells with pride and an age old love at the sight of them. The one from the ice cream shop hangs right in the middle of them all, and Jaemin thinks that it’s his favorite of the lot. It’s a reminder of how long he’s loved Donghyuck. 

The gold band on Donghyuck's finger catches the light, and it is brilliant.

“I love you, Jaemin.” 

“I know.” Jaemin’s smile grows blinding, and the camera clicks as he says, “I love you, too, Donghyuck.” 

  
  
  
  


Sometimes your first love is just a part of growing up, but sometimes fate is kind to you.

Sometimes you don’t grow out of love—sometimes you grow with it.

And sometimes, your first love is your last love, too.

**Author's Note:**

> this got longer than i thought! oops! am i sorry? no! tell me what you think.. i am on my knees. i am begging
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/666haech) | [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/boyeater)


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